Experimental behavior of fastener strengthened full scale T-wall

Recent earthquakes showed the vulnerability of unreinforced masonry buildings as the integrity of the structures is often affected by insufficient resistance of wall interconnections. Due to this reason, many strengthening solutions aim to achieve a box-like behavior to improve the overall resistance of the building. This paper presents an experimental campaign focused on the strengthening technique using fasteners to strengthen wall intersections. Full-scale masonry testing on T-walls made of solid clay bricks using twisted stainless-steel bars and bonded fasteners as strengthening method was carried out. The unreinforced specimens were built with a weak connection at the orthogonal wall intersection and loaded out-of-plane until cracking and corresponding load drop. After the cracked wall intersection was strengthened using different fasteners with deep embedment bridging the cracks, the specimen was cyclically loaded out-of-plane. The test results showed that a significant increase both in load capacity and ductility can be achieved depending on the type and number of fasteners used.